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\title{GEG528 Project Proposal}
\author{Andrew O'Neill}
\date{\today}
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\begin{abstract}

Elmwood Avenue has a high density of traffic signals. With this
high density there needs to be synchronization between signals or
there will be high congestion. Congestion irritates drivers and
possibly leads to aggressive driving and accidents. In this
project I will study the traffic lights statistics as well as
accidents and traffic violations to see if there is a correlation
between the two. 

\end{abstract}
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]

\section{Problem}

Elmwood Avenue is a hotspot in Buffalo. It stretches from
downtown Buffalo up to Kenmore and Tonawanda. With many small
shops, restaurants, bars, as well as Buffalo State College,
Elmwood Avenue attracts thousands of people daily. Along with
this large amount of people, Elmwood hosts a large amount of
traffic lights. There are traffic lights at nearly every
intersection, some lights even come without an intersection
(Between Bryant and Summer). Having such a volume of lights
creates a need for the lights to be synchronized.

In my project I would like to look at the different data for the
Elmwood Avenue area and see if there is a correlation between
traffic light density, vehicle collisions, congestion at
intersections, and traffic light timings.

\section{Resources}

To conduct this project I will use many GIS resources from the
City of Buffalo and the Greater Buffalo-Niagara Regional
Transportation Council (GBNRTC). From Eric Schmarder and the City
of Buffalo I have obtained data on the existing conditions of
traffic lights on Elmwood Avenue between Kenmore Ave. and Tupper
St. This document contains many details of each intersection
including Level of Service, Traffic Volumes at different peak
times, as well as Arterial Measures of Effectiveness for all of
Elmwood Ave. From the GBNRTC I will use data on Traffic Counts.
My contact at GBNRTC is Steve Szopinski. They have traffic counts
from 2010. From Matt Wrona an Analyst in the Police Department I
hope to obtain data on traffic accidents and violations.

\section{Methods}

I plan on using ArcGIS to study the data I am collecting for this
project. Some of the data I have acquired will need to be
manually entered. I will create point shape files for daily
traffic counts data collected from GBNRTC. Since the data does
not cover all of Elmwood Avenue I will then interpolate these
values with different interpolation methods. This will estimate
their values on different regions of Elmwood Avenue. When I
recieve the data from the Police Department I will decide how to
enter it as well. The data on the existing conditions from the
City of Buffalo will also be manually entered.

I will consider many different methods to examine the data. Using
the data from the City of Buffalo I would like to do a Network
Flow of the traffic to find spots of high congestion. I will also
use this data to find the density of traffic lights along
elmwood. From the Police data I will find the density of
accidents and the density of violations. Looking at all the
layers I will see if there is any correlations between the
different values.

\section{Hypothesis}

My Hypothesis is that there will be a positive correlation
between density of traffic lights, congestion, and number of
traffic violations and accidents. People are more likely to run a
red light or speed through a changing light if there are a high
density of lights. 

I also suspect that there will be a strong positive correlation
between the Signal Delay and the number of violations. If people
expect a long wait at a signal they may decide to run the red
light or speed through a changing light.

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